Climate March.

I went in the Climate March, in the rain. I got to the Meadows late, and the March had started, so I stayed where I was and let the March catch me up.

Surprisingly, my friends saw me standing, and we then marched down to Princes St Gardens.

It was, frankly, a huge march - at least by Edinburgh standards. Several thousand people.

It was a very friendly crowd, lots of smiling faces.

I can't help feeling slightly cynical about it, though. I have been on several climate marches - notably ahead of the Copenhagen summit in 2009, but also last year and before - and I'm not sure what we've accomplished.

On the other hand, it is much better to go on a march than not, because climate change isn't going away, and one must make one's voice heard however one can.

I was chatting with one of the march's organisers, a friend of a friend, who is going over to Paris as a delegate at the forthcoming climate summit, and who was also at Copenhagen. He sees today's march as a way of influencing politicians and the civil servants (who actually do the negotiating) ahead of the talks. And it's his job to influence them during the negotiations next week.